All's Fair
by Skuzzbucket
Summary: Gaara.  Hinata.  Six years in the future.  Blackmail.  Oh, it's ON.
1. Franz Ferdinand and a bullet

Alls Fair

Okay. I like Hinata as much as the next guy, and guys on average seem to like her a lot. She's cute, and adorable. But in those factors she's something of a Mary Sue. She's flawed, but she's definitely a guys fantasy come to life- a complete introvert with low self esteem who has a talent for blind devotion and seeing the good in other people. She's always available, because in the story no-one wants her.

But the fact of the matter is, because of that, once taken away from other people she stops being interesting. She can't carry a story on her own. Now, in some of the myriad, really BAD Naruto fanfics I've written, Hinata has always played a pretty key role. So when writing her, I find it a lot more fun and a lot more INTERESTING to watch her develop from timid, unobtrusive, cutesy Hinata to Hinata the snarky badass. After all, both Hinata and Naruto are characters who were obviously made with the intent of sucking, coming back, and blowing away everyone's former opinions with their mad awesomeness.

So. Here we have a story. In this story we have Hinata, quiet, shy, much more invested in others than in herself, more skilled than she realizes, and prone to guilt. These are defining character traits and they won't go away. HOWEVER, we also have Gaara, the ruthless, existentially confused, unexpressive murdering monster-cum-politician with a heart of gold. Technically probably just as socially inept as Hinata, and probably just as unwilling to start a conversation, although for different reasons. What do you think happens when you take these two non-reactive substances, place them together, and stir?

As far as this story goes, it's going to be the unstoppable force meets the immovable object. There are going to be explosions, there will be drama, there will be very passionate and kinky sex- suitably downplayed for the discerning audience- and finally, at long last, there will be a lot, and I mean a LOT, of yelling. I have every intention of having them bring down at least one wing of the Kazegakes palace on their three month anniversary. So buckle in and put on your helmets.

Oh, and one other thing. Yes, Naruto and Hinata dated. No, it didn't work out. I know, I know a lot of people think they were made for each other, but the story is more interesting if Hinata comes to this with some experience under her belt, yes? Besides, this is a good excuse for them to be in Suna.

One more thing, and then you can finally read. I promise.

There is actually a larger plot here beyond Gaara and Hinata. One of those really bad fics I mentioned before featured much of what we're seeing here as backstory. When I got to the description of Hinata and Gaara and the nature of their relationship, I couldn't help but be intrigued. So. The resolution of the larger issues presented here may get it's own fic, or it may never be made. But in the meantime, we get to have fun with Gaara, Hinata, Temari and Kankurou, Naruto, and Chouji. Enjoy!

"This really sucks."

"Yes."

"No, I mean REALLY. Like, octopus arm suckers sucks."

"…what?"

"Octopi arms? They have really powerful suckers? Can actually tear the skin off a man?"

"… How could you know something like that and still make such a silly joke?"

"Part of my rakish charm?"

Hinata giggled. He'd always been, and probably would always be, able to make her giggle like a schoolgirl. Naruto smiled wryly at the way she laughed.

"Well, it's nice to see that you still think I'm funny, at least."

"I doubt there's anyone who doesn't."

"Hey, lets not go and make this awkward, okay? I mean, I don't think I'll ever stop enjoying spending time with you, so we can stay friends, right?"

"Naruto, this was my idea."

"Well, yeah, but I'd been thinking about it too, remember?"

"I think we'd be hard put to be any more awkward around each other than we were when we started dating. Lets just take it as it comes, alright?"

"Sure."

They smiled at each other gently, and hugged. Both felt a little sad, but relationships changed and people moved on. There wasn't much they could do at this point to stop it.

"This is real touching and all, but I'm right here and I could REALLY use some food." Said another voice. Chouji scratched his washboard stomach, grinning as it growled. Hinata eeped and jerked back, and Naruto stuck out his tongue at the other boy.

Chouji shrugged it off, leaping off the rock he was sitting on, his long white robes flaring around him and brushing the ground. What shade there was under the desert tree was minimal and the discovery of nomadic clothing and its many advantages had been a cause for subdued celebration.

All around them stretched a panorama of nothing much. Sand, sun, and not a cloud in the sky. The small pool and the single, lonely, half dead tree were the only living thing they'd seen for miles.

"I'll get the water started if you get out the dried meats. But no eating them if you want dinner later!" Hinata didn't wait for an answer and started digging through her rucksack. Chouji leapt down and started opening his- he'd insisted on carrying the food- and Naruto made himself busy setting up the tents.

As the sun continues to attack the already subdued desert, the three finish their meal and prepare to sleep. The importance of a brief siesta as the heat truly begins to beat down upon the earth became impressed upon them when they fell asleep sitting a week back. They traveled at night and slept shortly after the sun began baking their surroundings.

As they rose in the evening and packed up, Naruto brought up the subject they were all thinking of.

"We'll be in Suna tonight."

Silence.

"Have we decided where we're going from there?"

"You're the big cheese, oh fearless leader. You figure it out." Chouji snarked.

"I don't want to."

"Then we'll stay in Suna for a bit and move on, like we always do. Just because we're close doesn't mean we have to go back."

"No, I mean I don't want to decide."

"Well, it's going to have to be up to you, because I'm split down the middle and I'm sure Hinata feels the same way. Right?"

"Yes."

"Oh, COME ON. Just throw me a bone? Just an opinion? Help me to help you and all that?"

Chouji sighed. He scratched the back of his head as they trudged over the dune. "I say we get some info on how things are back home, and then we go from there."

Hinata nodded. That was good. Putting off the decision a little longer would be nice.

The three marched in silence for a time. Their minds were preoccupied with old faces and an old life. It was strange how, after six years, Konoha was still home.

"…Who do you miss most?" Chouji asked nervously. He was edging close to forbidden territory here.

Hinata sighed, thinking. "…Neji. Neji and my father."

Naruto put his hands in his pockets sullenly. "Sakura." Hinata winced. A little early for that, Naruto. "What about you?"

"Shikamaru. And my dad, but mostly Shikamaru."

"…Sorry." Naruto said, his shoulders perched high defensively.

"Nothing to apologize for." Said Chouji.

The three lapsed back into silence, which lasted the rest of the night. Not uncomfortable, but edging over depths unplumbed for some time.

And so it was with solemn face and sunken heart that they first looked upon the squat and dry mud bricks of Suna that morning. The village lay close to the ground, hugging it like a large brown lizard soaking up the sun. It took longer than they thought to get there, and when they did the sun of the day had hit full swing. As they approached, they took steps to hide their identities- Hinata adopted a blindfold, Naruto pulled up a hood, and Choui wrapped the nomadic robes tightly around his face. A heat haze stood over the village and the streets were empty- they recalled from past experience that the people of Suna spent their days inside when they could, going out in the early morning and after twilight. The only two people visible were the two men manning the gate.

"State your names."

"Kenji, Hiroaki, and Akane. Hidden Mist nins on a research and surveying journey."

"Estimated length?"

"Depends on the speed at which we gather information."

"Estimated length of _stay_?"

"Oh, right. Probably no more than a few days, once we hit the library."

"ID?"

They flashed the forged cards the people in the Mizukage's office had given them and strolled inside. The first order of business was lodgings. Anything to get out of the sun. Unfortunately, the city was in a blanket state of siesta. They found no one to direct them to an inn or someone who might have an extra room, and didn't want to risk giving away their fake identities to the guys at the gate.

So they found some shade and sat in it pointedly, waiting for the sun to go down or inspiration to strike. Naruto concentrated on the sun, Chouji and Hinata concerned themselves with the inspiration.

But of course it wasn't as if there was a timeframe at the moment, and their minds started to wander gently. Chouji's turned to the short trip back to Konohagakure, and his best friend. He looked up, but there were no clouds in the sky. Naruto's turned to their correspondents in the organization and concern for the slightly late version of the recent updates. Of course, it could take some time for the messenger birds to find them again. Hinata found her mind wandering due Naruto- his hands traced in the dirt quickly and dexterously, but with no real purpose other than movement. He was always moving. She found herself wondering about his hands and feet- Naruto didn't callous, as his guest helped him heal too fast to build up scar tissue. He was hardy and tough as nails when he needed to be, but he had the hands of a child. She thought, on a physical level, that might be what she'd miss the most about their dalliance. All the little quirks of his body due to his speeded healing. No scars, no sunburn or rashes, no moles- he had a totally unmarred surface, like a walking classical statue. Of course his skin had been through enough that it showed the signs, and it was far from porcelainic, but it had still been nice to know just how aerodynamic her lover really was-

They were jerked from their thoughts by the gradual susurration of feet on sand. A procession was wandering gradually up the street- it was not organized, or the footsteps would have been in time. No, this was more like one man and a collection of hangers on circling him, like sea creatures circling an underwater geyser, seeking sustenance.

And into view strolled the Kazegake. His attendants and advisors were apparently barely a blip on his radar- he was just short of outright ignoring them. The gourd he customarily carried was gone, but the sand around him seemed to move and level in a manner that was a little unnatural, smoothing itself before his feet so that he didn't have to adopt the heel to toe stalk of the practiced desert resident. He moved with confidence and intent, obviously thinking about whatever goal he was on his way towards to the exclusion of everything else. That is, until he looked at Hinata.

With a jerk she came back from her careful consideration of the Sands leader to reality, and realized that Naruto and Chouji had both hidden themselves quickly. She mentally kicked herself for carelessness- she knew better than to make such a stupid mistake. The breakup of yesterday morning had obviously affected her more than she had considered.

Gaara had stopped short, his left foot coming to meet his right and his hands coming to rest at his sides, simply stopping the stride. He stood without inflection and moved without emotion, but his eyes bored into the seated Hyuuga prodigal with a furious intensity, even as his attendants hovered nervously in the background. He raised his arm and pointed evenly at her.

"Bring her to the palace. Give her a room. She will dine with me tonight." He resumed walking.

----------------------------------------------------------

Hinata pushed her fingers together, a nervous habit she'd never been able to rid herself of.

Consider the facts, she cautioned herself.

What we know- obviously he has an interest in you for some reason. He is a very powerful shinobi who has more than a passing familiarity with your village. Your eyes cannot have given you away, thanks to the blindfold. While you took the Chuunin exam with him that fateful year, you were only in the same room with him on about three separate occasions, give or take. And you never spoke.

What we don't know- why he brought me here. Why he was outside when everyone else was not. Why he did not ask about companions or if you were traveling with anyone, when you are so obviously just off the road.

Extrapolation- He may have caught some scent of Naruto. He may have been curious, he may find you attractive. He may have been concerned for your health. He may think you are a spy. He may know who you are. He may have sensed your guest. He may want to kill you and shower in your blood.

The method of considering all the possibilities in three stages that Chouji had taught her for thinking in confined situations wasn't helping.

As the situation was, she was in a lavish bedroom, in a building she knew must be the Kazegakes palace. She had been provided some food and enough water to clean herself, and was told curtly not to go anywhere. While Hinata knew she could easily remove the obstacles, it was probably safer not to draw attention right now.

She realized belatedly that she had started pacing. She stopped. Calmed herself. She sat and adopted a breathing exercise, in through the nose and out through the mouth. She adopted the lotus position and continued. The not-quite meditation calmed her, kept her from jumping to conclusions. Best to take things as they come. No doubt Naruto and Chouji were outside trying to figure out what to do.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

"What do we DO?!"

"How should I know, dipshit!?"

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Anyway, right now her best bet was patience. Not that it mattered because the door burst open at that moment, giving birth to a flood of maids being barked at by none other than Temari of the Sand.

"- and you have only FIVE MINUTES TO DO IT." She snapped at all of them. They rushed around Hinata and started pulling her clothes off her at a breakneck pace, nervous enough that one of them almost choked her.

"Ghhgraaaaagh!" She choked. Temari smirked, smacking the maid upside the head. Hinata was reminded uncomfortably of her younger sister.

"So, did you hit on him or did he hit on you?" Queried the sand nin.

"Um..?"

"Gaara." Said the other girl, as if the question shouldn't need explanation. "He's never shown any interest in a girl before. For a while we thought he might be gay, but he never touched a guy either. So just what happened to spark this little affair?"

"Uh… well, I don't really think this is a date or anything…"

"You stole something from him? You badmouthed him at the wrong moment? You bumped into him? You looked at him funny? You messed up his order at a fast food joint?" Temari started ticking these off on her fingers. "If it's not a date he's had people pulled into his presence for all kinds of unsavory reasons."

This woman was not helping.

"I don't know." Hinata said, bowing her head.

Temari made a disappointed sigh. "Half the village was all excited over the new gossip. You're going to do terrible things to their narrative sense." She turned and whirlwinded back out the door, but not without a parting gift. "He'll see you in half an hour. You're borrowing one of my dresses, so try not to let him break the skin anywhere."

It had been half an hour. Then, in the dining room, it had been another half an hour. Looking around, Hinata noticed that, despite his illustrious position, Gaara lived sparsely. The dining room of the palace had evidence that it had once been filled with sumptuous furnishings and impressive wall decoration. But now it was reduced to unused nails on the walls, a table large enough to seat about four people, four chairs, and a window. What there was present was of good quality, but didn't have much ornamentation. Either the Kazegake believed in the beauty of simplicity, or he didn't give a shit.

Gaara, when he came, made no attempt to start a conversation. The food came. They ate. Hinata ate very little, feeling that if she went too far she might be inable to keep the food down later. Dessert came. They ate. The fare was good, but like the room, simple. Filling and promising of energy for the next day.

When finished, Gaara ordered all the attendants, hangers on, advisors, and jounin out of the room. He sat back in his chair, and asked, "Which do you have?"

Hinata feigned ignorance. "What?"

His eyes narrowed dangerously. "Bijou."

"Um, I'm afraid I don't know what you're talking about…" She said.

"You have a mark." He said, pointing to her ears where small tufts of navy fur played up over the arches, the fur coming to a point. "And I," he said with great deliberation, "Am nobodies fool."

Indeed he wasn't. Hinata took off the blindfold, knowing he probably wouldn't recognize her. No point in hiding now, anyway. "Nibi." She said, sitting back as well.

"The two tails. A cat girl." Said Gaara, sneering. She felt an unfamiliar emotion. Was this anger? It didn't come naturally to her.

"Better than a murderer." It was out before she could stop herself. But Gaara only grinned at the accusation. "No doubt. So what are you doing in my village, cat girl." The question sounded less like a query and more like a demand to respond.

"Traveling…" She said.

"Interesting. You know that I'm not an idiot and I'm assuming, given your earlier snipe, that you know I could probably kill you without trying, bijou or no. And yet instead of actually answering my question to any perceivable degree you choose, instead, to throw out what may be the vaguest possible answer I've ever heard. Please understand that I didn't stop being a murderer when I decided to protect this village. I just stopped murdering for ME. So, I'll ask you again. What are you doing here?" It was perhaps the longest speech Gaara had made to another person that day, but he was tired and on edge. And the little thing in front of him that far more resembled a mouse than a cat shrunk at his words in a pleasing fashion.

"Where are you going, if you're traveling?" Asked the redhead.

Hinata had had enough. Unfurling, she snapped at him, "I'm afraid it doesn't seem like any of your business." His eyes widened in a way that made her feel warm and fuzzy all over.

He leaned in. "I don't trust bijou." He said, smirking. "I know as well as anyone what they do to those around them when they… lack control." The last was said in a wry fashion, as though he'd committed some social faux pas and not killed people who no doubt numbered in the hundreds. "So a clearer understand of your intentions might keep me from having you either outright ejected or, in a worst case scenario, killed." He waited for her to match his ante.

She leaned right in too, putting her hand on her chin. "Who's going to do the killing? You? I know about you, Subaku no Gaara. You haven't got a bijou anymore. And however much of a hell it might have made your life, without it you aren't nearly as tough as you were with it. So. Do you really think you can kill someone who has the power you lost?" Within her something stirred. Nibi of course was demanding the boys death and ressurection for her dubious purposes, but it had been a long time and Hinata knew how to tune her out. No, this was thrilling. Hinata was no thrill seeker by anyones definition, but this feeling was sweet.

And, at just that moment, the open window was broken loudly by two young men who tumbled through in the least dignified manner possible, ending up in a knot of twitching limbs on the floor. Hinata and Gaara both leapt back, but Hinata stopped early, sighed, and ran a hand over her eyes. These were two of the most dangerous ninja in the world, and they couldn't even stalk a teammate.

Naruto untangled himself from Chouji and stood, rubbing the back of his head. "ouchouch… hehe, hi, Hinata!" He said, waving. She smiled and waved back genially. "We've, uh, come to rescue you! Hi, Gaara." He said, waving at the other young man too.

Gaara looked surprised, angry, and confused, but he rallied quickly. Some sand from the walls poured out, smacked Naruto in the face, and poured back in. Naruto jerked back and said, "What was that for?!"

"Nothing. Just wanted to do it." Said Gaara, folding his arms. "I take it this is one of yours."

"Yeah, but can we get back to the part where you just hit me for no reason?"

"No. So, care to explain to me what… _three_ jinchuuriki from Konoha are doing in my village unsupervised without my prior knowledge or consent?" At that moment Temari and Kankurou burst into the room, weapons at the ready. Gaara held up his hand. "Excellent timing. If the two of you had been here any later they might not even have had to fight you. Except, you know, by then I'd already be dead."

"Nice to see you talking more." Said Naruto, sighing.

"I find it satisfying." Said Gaara, his face still immobile.


	2. Invading Poland

Chapter 2

Notes: The characters, as I'm sure everyone's noticed, are going to be pretty different from their incarnations in the canon. But then, it's been six years. Do you really expect them to be the same people?

Gaara woke, and rolled over.

In some, this would be considered lazy. Gaara preferred to think of it as appreciation for the wonder that was sleep.

His whole life he'd gone without slumber. The few times he'd slept had been either traumatic or self induced rampages. Not real sleep at all, merely lack of consciousness. After returning from Akatsuki with the help of the pink haired ninja he'd nearly killed and the boy sleeping in another of his guest bedrooms downstairs, he'd eventually had his first real full nights sleep. It had taken him three weeks to figure out how to relax enough to let it happen. When it did, he woke up five minutes later in a cold sweat. How did people survive that? How did people stay sane after relinquishing the reigns of their minds so completely? Just as he'd gone his whole life without sleep he'd had to learn to keep the reigns on his thought processes tightly held. Insane he may be, but irrational he was not.

But sleep took all his careful control and threw it out the window like so much rubbish. His first dream had been about a kitten. No lie. He'd had to wake up Temari and beg her to tell him what it meant. It was the most emotion he'd ever shown her. Her and Kankurou were the only people in the world who knew how scared he'd been those first few months, and bless them, they'd never treated him any differently. He'd fallen asleep for the first full night with them beside him, Kankurou snoring loudly on the floor and Temari sleeping sitting upright, Gaara's head in her lap.

The next morning he'd beaten them up a little bit. It didn't do to lose your edge.

The point was, it had taken him most of his life to learn to sleep at all, and he fully intended to make up for lost time. He'd since started to consider himself something of an aficionado. There was reward sleep, which you got when you'd had a long day or dealt with some particularly difficult problems. There was rolling over in the morning sleep, which left one in a pleasant lethargy all day. There was I-had-an-appointment-but-I'm-skipping-it-cuz-I'm-the-Kazegake sleep, which always seemed to be the most wonderful. There were late naps, early bedtimes, midday siestas. There was-

-CRASH- "Gaara, we need to talk."

…there was I-tried-to-roll-over-but-this-idiot-burst-into-my-room-so-now-I-decorate-the-walls-with-him sleep. Gaara rolled back and, with a halfhearted motion, clamped a muzzle of sand around Naruto's mouth. Then he rolled over again. Naruto continued to try to enunciate through the sand- he'd choke soon- but then the tall guy walked past him with the little mouse-cat-girl, who started trying to peel the sand off the blonde guys face. "Kazegake, sir, I think it's important we make sure we understand each other." Chouji said, trying diplomacy. Gaara sat up slowly and turned his head. His collection of horror movies was a wonderful thing- the chick from The Exorcist had been a big inspiration for him. Chouji, Naruto and Hinata all made a hasty retreat.

Gaara sighed resignedly. He'd never get back to sleep now. Might as well start the day. Up he rose and over to his closet he strolled, where he pulled out his black, charcoal and burgundy attire. A short time later he was showered, shaved, and dressed, and he strolled abruptly out of room. A flick of his hand and the clamp around Naruto's mouth was gone. "What." Gaara said, turning and stalking towards his office, which was down the hall.

"Um, how much longer are you planning to keep us here?" Naruto asked.

"Not really sure." Said Gaara, turning a corner. "When are you going to tell me what you're up to?"

"Have you sent any information on our whereabouts to Konoha?" Asked Chouji.

"No. But thank you for the ammunition." Chouji winced.

"I'm sorry, did we wake you up?" Asked Hinata apologetically.

"What was your first clue? The bed, or my pajamas?" Gaara burst into his office and they followed behind. The door hit Naruto on the nose on his way in.

Gaara used his sand to lift some papers from his secretaries desk to his hand and started flipping through them quickly. He strolled straight to his own desk- he nearly walked into a table but yet again the sand appeared to move it from his path. He sat and put his feet up.

The three who followed him in found themselves at a loss for words. Gaara had that effect on people, and knew it. Keeping people off balance was a necessity in his world now. The political arena was different than the arena of combat, but some principles were the same.

He looked up. "Good talk." He said, and went back to his papers. They started walking away until Naruto turned and said, dramatically, "We're leaving today."

With a wave of his hand Gaara blocked the doorway with sand. "No you're not."

"Am too!"

"Are not."

"Am too!"

"I'm not doing this."

"Gaaaraaa!" Whined Naruto. "We have places to gooooo."

"I don't care." Said Gaara, returning to his papers.

Oddly enough, the little catmouse was the one who shoved the blond guy out of the way. "Look, you." She said, "I don't know who you think you are, but you can't just detain people for no discernable reason. I know for a fact that village law requires you to have a documented purpose to our imprisonment." Naruto and Chouji looked a little surprised. Gaara was too, a bit. He hadn't pegged the girl as very aggressive.

"Well, technically that's true." He said, putting down the papers and folding his fingers together over his stomach. "And, of course, when you find a citizen willing to speak on your behalf to me, I'll be perfectly willing to listen very carefully to every word they have to say." He looked her in the eye, his carefully chosen words coming out like a man pulling out a Tommy gun. Hinata glared at him. She turned and stormed out, and Gaara had the good grace to open a door for her. He nodded to Naruto and Chouji and went back to what he was doing. Eventually they, too, left.

Gaara went back to examining mission reports. Temari and Kankurou walked in, Kankurou holding a large plastic bag of something. "Hey, baby bro." He said, smiling. "We broughtcha breakfast." He pulled out a selection of pancakes- plain, blueberry, and chocolate chip. Gaara, who had an incredible sweet tooth, beelined for the chocolate pretending to be pastry. Temari snatched the blueberry before Kankurou could get to it, leaving him to slather syrup over his boring old pancakes. The three ate happily, saying little. Of course it was the puppet master who had to try to get a rise out of his baby brother.

"So, you really gonna keep that kid and his little fanclub for much longer?" he asked around a mouthful. Temari smacked him.

Gaara wiped some excess chocolate onto his cakes before resuming cutting. "As long as it takes." He shoveled in another pile of milk chocolate and egg.

"You mean to figure out what they're doing?" Asked Temari, her teeth stained blue.

""Yes." Said Gaara.

"I'm a little weirded out by them too." Said Temari. "Why are there three of them all traveling together? With Akatsuki still on the prowl after all these years it seems like a recipe for disaster."

"You think maybe they're some kind of anti-Akatsuki gang?" Asked Kankurou, licking some syrup off his hand. "Maybe they, ya know, went out and grabbed the bijou deliberately to keep Akatsuki from getting them."

"I doubt it." Said Gaara, finishing first. He'd always had the greatest appetite of all three of them. "Naruto wouldn't let them."

"Hmm, point." Said Temari. She sat back, grinning. "This is nice." She said, happily. Kankurou and Gaara looked askance at her. Here it came. "Remember how when we were kids, we'd avoid each other as much as possible?"

"Well, YEAH, Temari." Said Kankurou, pointedly. "You were a bitch and Gaara was a psychotic murderer who would kill us as soon as look at us."

"It's true." Gaara nodded sagely.

"The POINT is that it's just nice to feel like a family, isn't it?" Temari grinned.

Gaara and Kankurou looked at her like she was crazy. "Why do you always do this?" Kankurou asked, frustrated. "We're having fun and then you have to go and kill the vibe with the whole happy families approach. Last time you tried to hug Gaara he nearly broke your arm."

"I did." Gaara said, nodding nostalgically.

"I don't think there's any harm in loving my little brothers." Said Temari, getting up and leaning forward to hug Kankurou. "Come here, Gaara." She said. "Family hug time."

The two ended up on their asses outside, deposited swiftly by Gaara's sand, which then closed the door with a loud SLAM.

"You've really gotta learn." Said Kankurou, rubbing his head.

Gaara sighed and sat back down, rubbing his head. He loved his siblings, he really did- he just expressed it by occasionally beating them senseless and leaving them on their doorsteps. Given the nature of his upbringing, they were probably lucky. He flipped to incoming missions and mission requests in an attempt to get himself interested in something other than crushing his brother and sister.

And something caught his eye. "TEMARI!" he yelled. She ran back in, arms outstretched. "Coming, baby broth-AHH!"

When he put her down, he pointed to the incoming Shinobis name with a little grin. "I want you to draft a message to the Hokage for me and send it back with him when he leaves, if I give you the go ahead. Inform the Hokage of our guests. You have some time since he's scheduled to arrive in a few days, so get it down by tonight. I'll take the opportunity to proofread." Temari rubbed her bruises and nodded.


	3. Phoney War

Naruto, Hinata, and Chouji all walked down the hall, shoulders slumped. "It'll be no effort for him to send word back home." Said Chouji.

"Is that necessarily a bad thing?" Pointed out Naruto. "We'd been thinking about it anyway, and it's safe to go back now, right? Maybe we should just head back and consequences be damned."

"Do you really want everyone to know what happened to Chouji and me?" Asked Hinata, quietly.

Naruto sighed, and shook his head. "No, I guess not. If we go back, I'd like to keep your guests discreet for now."

"He's got us by the short hairs." Said Chouji, angrily. "If he demands it, we'll have to tell him."

"He won't like it." Said Naruto, certainly. "More than anyone else he'll get royally pissed. But when he gets a chance to think about it, I'm sure he'll understand."

"So we tell him?" Asked Chouji.

"Not yet." Naruto was all business now, his former, goofy self gone in the face of intrigue. "I want to see what he does. If you really want my bet, I think he's just lonely. All he's got are Temari and Kankurou, and they're probably in high demand for missions. He may be able to go out in public without people screaming, but I doubt he has many friends."

"Kinda like you." Mused Hinata, looking at her ex.

Naruto nodded. "The similarities are obvious, aren't they? He's socially awkward, I'm charmingly oblivious. He's bitter, cynical and stubborn, I'm incorrigibly cheerful and determined. He's the Kazegake, I'm the once future Hokage and current leader of the second largest illegal organization in the world. Oh, the parallels just pile up." His sarcasm was a little forced.

Hinata smiled, not paying attention. "Yes, they do." Naruto looked down at her. "Hey, that's not fair. You can't get over me that quick. What'll Chouji think?" Chouji muttered something to the effect that what he thought about the whole situation could probably get him shot.

Hinata jerked back to reality. "Over you? What are you talking about?"

"You LIKE him!" Naruto yelled, pointing a finger at her. She veered away from its accusing beam. "I do not!" She exclaimed. "I-in fact, he makes me more _angry_ than anyone ever has!"

"I noticed that." Chouji piped up, leaning past Naruto to get a good look at his teammate. "I've never known you to get so very pissy about rules before."

She blushed. "He just rubs me the wrong way, that's all." She said, looking down. They came to the hall that contained their rooms and stopped in it.

"What now?"

"Well, we could leave. It's not like anyone can stop us. Those three are pretty tough, but we could probably take them."

"Even Gaara?"

"I did it once, I could do it again."

"But if we leave, won't he send word?"

"He might, but he also might not. After all, he owes me a few favors."

"So, leaving is option one. But it might not be a good idea to push him. He's proud."

"You got that right. We could stay, too. We don't have anywhere pressing to be at the moment until the teams find another of our guests. So sticking around is a safe bet."

"But what'll we do with our time? I can't just stand around like an idiot."

"We can practice and train, and maybe we can get Gaara to throw some sympathy missions our way if we play him right. After all, we could use the money and he could use our skill."

"So that's the plan? We play mercenary?"

"Unless anyone has a better idea, it makes sense for now."

"I d-don't like it." Said Hinata. Usually she stuck with Naruto on any decision, so she was a little nervous. "I don't trust him."

"It's the girl." Said Temari, grinning. "He can't stand her, and you know what that means."

"He's got a thing?" Kankurou asked, grinning. "My darling brother actually has a crush?"

"I think he owes us a little nosiness, don't you? Wanna meddle?"

"Always wanted to give it a try."

Gaara sighed again. He found himself doing that a lot. Putting down the papers and excusing himself from the collection councilmen demanding his audience, he went to go take a break.

Using his sand to travel up to the roof through one of the office windows, he laid back and stretched, taking care not to push the layered ceramic tiles out of place. When was the last time he'd killed something? Too much work, too much work.

In a lot of ways Gaara missed being a psychotic madman. Of course life was less rewarding, but he'd known where he stood. Against everyone else. If he killed everyone else alive, then by default he would be proving he was, in some way, MORE alive. It was a twisted logic and he knew it, but it had been simple. But then Naruto went and gave him the burden of a conscience, which, frankly, sucked. So now he had to prove he was alive by protecting a whole village full of people who he didn't even really like all that much. How he'd convinced himself this was a better way to live he'd never know.

A light wind blew over the roof. Gaara aligned his face towards it, slightly, to catch as much of the cooling breeze as he could.

He smelled Temari.

His eyes snapped open and darted backwards and forwards, searching for his errant sister. He was in no mood for another talk about reaching out and hugging or whatever bullcrap her Chicken Soup books had fed her.

"aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAH-OOF!"

The wind, which had grown to a gust, blew away. And, lying on top of Gaara, was the catmouse, dressed in what Gaara recognizes as one of Temaris outfits for when she went trolling for boys.

"…Could you please get off me." He said, irritable at his break being interrupted. The small electrical rush he felt at her proximity was noted, ignored and filed away to the deepest depths of his subconscious with all the other things he wanted to deny.

Hinata jerked and scrambled backwards, crabwalking a few feet before realizing she was flashing her crotch at Gaara in her panic. His eyes were riveted, and she eeped and closed in on herself like a snail without a shell.

Hinatas face burned with her blush. How many times had people grabbed and manhandled her into dresses in the last few days? It didn't help that the puppet guy had just stood and stared appreciatively. She was so embarrassed.

Gaara shook off the effects of seeing the girls panties, not wanting to deal with the way it made him feel. Instead, he focused on getting angry at Temari and Kankurou. No doubt this was a pathetic attempt at matchmaking.

He sighed, and stood up carefully on the tiles, the result of many years of practice. Walking over to her, he put his hands on her shoulders. She eeped again.

"Don't do that. It makes you sound like a little girl. Now, when I tell you to, stand. Don't move your feet from where they are, or you'll push the tiles out of place and make them fall on the sidewalk. I'll steady you. Now, get up."

Hypnotized by what Gaara called his 'command' voice, Hinata rose slowly upwards, unbalanced. Gaara never moved an inch and she soon stood at full height. She was, Gaara realized, a lot taller than she looked. In fact, she was easily over five and a half feet. Maybe like a lot of bigger girls, she'd shrunk her personality in an attempt to balance it? It made him angry. Gaara didn't like when people let circumstance define the present. Of course, it didn't help that that meant she was actually about an inch or two taller than him.

Wait, why should he care? He was Sabaku no Gaara, Kazekage of the Sand, famous worldwide. He had no reason to prove himself, least of all to this shrinking violet.

"Um… you can let go now."

Gaara came back to earth with a jolt. Snatching his hands away, he mentally berated himself for losing focus. Eight years ago that would have resulted in a protracted battle for control with Shukaku. He should be better than this.

He didn't like what this woman did to him.

Hinata took his silence for a question. "Um, your sister came into my room and just started pulling off my clothes. Naruto tried to stop her, but then she told him she was bringing me to you and he… well, he left…"

Another person to punish. Gaara grinned wolfishly. It was going to be a long day.

Raising his sand from the surroundings- the stuff did get everywhere, it really did- Gaara built a sand cloud and told Hinata to get on. They drifted down to street level, where Gaara dissolved the cloud and began strolling in.

Hinata, pulling the skirt down with one hand- this attire didn't make her feel very comfortable- shuffled in after him. "I'm sorry to h-have bothered you-"

"Not your fault." Said Gaara, abruptly. What was with the girl? She'd gone toe to toe with him on several occasions and now she was back to being a mouse again. "I've got a feeling I know what this is all about."

"Uh.. I think that they're trying to matchmake…" Said Hinata, blushing furiously.

"No shit." Said Gaara. "I supposed I shouldn't be surprised at the lack of taste. Neither Temari nor Kankurou ever had any truck with subtlety."

"Taste?!" Hinata squeeked angrily. Gaara winced. It was like listening to a rodent throw a tantrum. "I-I don't think that's a very nice thing to say to me."

Gaara turned, angry. Angry at Temari and Kankurou for trying to meddle in his love life, angry at Naruto for going along with it, angry at his three guests for not telling him what he wanted to know, angry at whatever it was he'd been feeling on the roof, and most of all angry at this girl for her passive aggressive argument.

"Yes, girl, taste. The dress, the pathetic lack of nuance or secrecy, the ignoring of how either party felt, and the idea that I could be attracted to someone who speaks after the fashion of a three year old." Hinata grew progressively redder. Gaara turned back and continued walking, resolute in his determination to punish those responsible. He got about three steps before something grabbed his arm, pulled him around, and his face met the side of Hinatas hand.

Or almost did. Hinata wasn't a child. She wouldn't sink to that petty soap opera reaction so quickly. But she stopped just short, the breath of air following her toned, trained arm brushing Gaara's cheek before the sand managed to catch up and protect him.

Gaaras eyes widened. She'd been fast. Faster than the sand. Only one person had ever managed that before. And yes, he'd been almost as annoying.

Hinata pulled her hand back. "I may not be a very assertive p-person." She said, trying to keep the stammer out of her voice. Or was she trying to control something else? "But I don't let people talk that way about me anymore. Especially not t-to my face. Apologize."

Gaaras face returned to type, but his mind reeled. This girl defied all definition. He thought she was a scared little mouse, but when she got angry she roared like a lion. Which was she? Gaara had been insulting, beating, and hurting people in one way or another for most of his life. He was a sadist. It was what made him such a good politician and warrior. And, for exactly the third time in his life, someone had stood up to him. One had been the kid in green, one had been Naruto. Both had been loud, brash and stupid. But this one, the third, was quiet, unassuming, and, from earlier conversations, pretty smart. So where did she figure? The dichotomy drove Gaara to greater depths of anger. He had a large reservoir of the stuff.

Gaara stepped closer. Normally he wouldn't have bothered, but this girl had an effect on him that he didn't like. He couldn't keep his aloof attitude around her. It was a problem, and there was only one way to deal with it.

"Make me."

Hinata stared into Gaaras eyes with her own, willing him to be unnerved by the lavender white of her pupil. Almost nobody could outstare a Hyuuga. But somehow, Gaara had it in him.

Hinata felt a bolt of lighting run up her spine and down again. Nobody had ever made her so angry before. Sure, she'd felt the tense, helpless anger of the geek, the weirdo, the outcast, and the ignored, but never this.

"Make you?" She whispered, eyes narrowing.

He nodded. "You heard me."

Oooho, she was going to make the bastard SUFFER.

Wait, had she just thought that?

There, in the hallway to Gaara's office, dignitaries and peons running to and fro with paperwork, Hinata squared into the Jyuuken stance. Gaara folded his arms, a signal for everyone in a two mile radius to get the hell out of dodge.

"You don't want to make me do this." Hissed Hinata.

"Oh no, I very much do." Sneered Gaara.

The last clerk dashed out the other end of the hall.

There was silence as paper fluttered to the ground in the wake of all the diplomacy the two had just stopped short.

Gaara moved first, yanking sand out of the floor, the walls, the windows, to form a much larger gourd on his back than had been there all those years ago. It was bigger than he was. Hinata stood on the balls of her feet and bounced gently on her heels.

Once again, there was silence. The two were ready. Who would move first?

Temari and Kankurou burst through the door at the other end of the hall. "Gaara!" Yelled Kankurou. "Not HERE! We need this building for politics!"

Naruto and Chouji entered at the other end. "Hinata!" Yelled Naruto, waving his ands frantically. "Not here! We need this building because lunch is in one hour!"

The two remained still, for a moment. Then Hinata looked up. "Rain check?" She asked, politely. Gaara inclined his head. "Of course."

Gaara turned and wrapped his siblings in sand, squeezing them slowly. "There are things we need to discuss." He whispered, a feral gleam in his eye.

Hinata turned, smiling, as Naruto ran up to see if she was alright. When he was close, she used a Jyuuken strike to make his legs go limp. He fell to the ground in a heap. Hinata daintily stepped over him, knelt, and whispered, "I'll always admire and respect you, Naruto, but if you meddle in my love life again, I'll make it so you never use chakra for the rest of your life." She left. Gaara strode with his siblings through the opposite door.

Chouji walked over and helped Naruto up. "I think you may have created a monster." He said, all smiles. Naruto shuddered. "One was enough."

Hinata stormed back and forth in her room, talking to herself and reiterating the same points over and over, letting off steam.

How DARE he! How DARE they! How DARE this! How DARE that!

And so on.

Emotionally exhausted, she leaned up against the wall. She wasn't sure how much longer she could take this.

It was bad enough that she'd been stripped, embarrassed, dropped from twenty feet onto somebody she didn't even like, and then insulted repeatedly by that same someone. But the thing that really took the cake was just how close she'd come to violence.

Hinata was not a violent person. She was a shinobi, of course, and a very good one, but that was a job. She preferred to solve problems with conversation and compromise. She'd been raised in an environment where so called 'thuggery' was an insult to the noble nature of martial arts.

But something about that man with that damn tattoo and those bruised, tired eyes just set her off. He was like a shot of adrenaline to the base of her neck. Five seconds around him and she had to MOVE. Had to act.

He reminded her of Neji and her father, in a way.

Not later, after they'd loosened up, returned to who they were supposed to be and let the past go. But when they'd both been bitter and cruel and angry.

Naruto had changed both of them, during the chuunin exams. The fight with Neji had reached Hiashi, and both had become the people Hinata remembered them as, thanks to her ex.

God, maybe breaking up with Naruto had been a bad idea. If other boys were like this, then maybe all the little problems they'd had weren't so bad.

Wait.

Hadn't Naruto fought and changed Gaara's outlook too?

Wow. If he had, and this was the changed Gaara she was dealing with… what had the old one been like?

Hinata sighed, and put a hand to her temple, massaging it. In all fairness, his actions spoke differently than his words. He was keeping them prisoner, but he trusted them enough not to put them under lock and key. He had provided food, room and board, and made sure to allow them time to train in the mornings. He had in fact been outright attentive. And Hinata knew his story. She didn't subscribe to the widespread belief that a tough life gave you the right to be an asshole, but she could understand why he was the way he was.

But he had also called her weak. Hinata couldn't forgive that.

She heaved an even bigger sigh, from the very base of her lungs. If this kept up, she'd be exhausted in two more days.

How could she deal with someone who she sympathized with, and who had been nothing but the perfect host, but who turned her into someone she didn't want to be? She had to stop him.

Gaara sat still in his chambers, meditating.

Gaara breathed lightly, trying to let the events of the day wash from his mind. But no matter what he did, he kept coming back to the cat-mouse-girl.

Why couldn't he forget her? Thinking about her just got him riled up.

_Because she's weak_. Said a voice in his head.

Gaara's breath hitched briefly. Voices in his head weren't things he was unused to, but after Shukaku left, it was always a scare that he would find some way back to torture the redhead yet again.

But this wasn't the tanuki. This was just the little devils advocate in his head that amused itself by telling him the truths he didn't want to hear.

_She's not weak._ Gaara responded_. I felt her battle aura. She would have given me a good fight._

_She's weak in other ways._ Whispered the voice, sinuous and sibilant.

_She stood up to me._

_Yes. She hides her strength. But on the surface, she is weak._

_No._

_Why defend her? You know the truth._

Gaara was silent a moment. Then he inclined his head slightly. _Yes. She is weak._

_But within her lies the strength you saw. You cannot forget her because you are fascinated, aren't you?_

_I'm not._

_Yes you are. Still waters run deep, and you wish to learn more of the torrential currents beneath her quiet, reflective surface._

_I do not wish for that. I don't even like her._

_That is my point. You do not like the surface. But the woman underneath, the lioness, you like that. The thrill of it. Of her._

_No._

_Yes. You want to strip away all the pretension, all the geniality, and expose her for what she really is._

_  
No._

_Yes._

_No._

Hinata squared her shoulders and stood. Whatever his good qualities, nobody told Hyuuga Hinata she was weak. Not anymore.

"I'll **show** him!" The declaration rang throughout the room.

Gaara's eyes snapped open. He would not be played with by his emotions, and he would not be controlled by anything but his own will.

"I will _break_ her." The whisper was a promise, and it bled out his mouth like dark red wine.


	4. Blitz

"I've decided I'm going to break you." Said Gaara over steepled fingers, feet up on his desk with Hinata standing in front of it.

Hinata was, of course, taken aback. But she rallied. "W-what are you talking about?"

"I'm going to break your spirit." He said, relishing the words like good food.

"W-why?"

He shrugged.

Hinata was at a loss yet again. She'd been training. She wished she still was. Back in the dojo, people spoke sense.

"I considered a couple of different possible ways to do it." He continued, unfolding his legs and standing. "I looked at torture, of course, but it's messy and Naruto would complain."

Hinata gaped.

"I thought about psychological warfare. Gradually increasing suspense and cutting off your contacts to the outside world until you grew mad and sorry in your room."

Hinata backed away as he orbited the desk towards her.

"But, ultimately, two things struck me as the way to get the best possible result with minimum effort."

Hinata tried to come back to herself, as he drew gradually closer and closer to her. His hand brushed the side of his desk, and his eyes burned into hers like torches.

"Humiliation and repetition." And with that he grabbed a stack of papers from his desk and forced them into her hands. "I want these indexed and filed in one hour, or I send a runner to your Hokage telling her exactly where you are."

There was a pause.

Hinata found her words again. "You're going to turn me into a _file clerk?_"

"Not just any file clerk. My personal file clerk. You do exactly what I say and you do it by when I say, or Konoha gets letter bombed." He seemed almost cheerful. "Now get to work."

"Yikes. Just yikes." Said Naruto, staring through the door with Kankurou.

"Do you think they're cognizant of how bad they've got it?" Asked the puppet master.

"God, I hope not."

Kankurou snuck a look at him. "Jealous?"

"Huh?"

"Well, you dated her before now, right?"

Naruto looked back through the door as Hinata scurried to and fro. "Yeah, but it was petering off long before we got here. We just said the words on that day, is all. We already knew."

"Hmm." Said the boy. "Do you think Gaara knows?"

"I doubt it."

"I gotta ask." Said Kankurou, looking back as well. "Why aren't you guys trying harder to get away? Not that I'd encourage it, mind you."

Naruto gave the question some thought. "Well, two reasons, really. One, we haven't got anywhere pressing to be, and free room and board is a good deal." Kankurou smirked. "Two, I think the real reason Gaara's keeping us here is because he wants friends around. So there's no harm in staying for a bit."

Kankurou stood and smiled. He clapped Naruto on the shoulder and started walking down the hall. "You've got a good eye. Just trust me on one thing. Don't try to hug him."

Elsewhere, two people were sparring.

"Kuchyose no jutsu: Kirikiri Mai!"

Chouji only barely snuck behind a stone outcropping before the air around him turned into blustery death. "A LITTLE OVER THE TOP, DON'T YOU THINK?!" He yelled, perturbed.

As the winds died down, Temari grinned and responded. "There's no point in half-assing things!" Jumping into the air on top of her fan, she glided over above Chouji's shield. Dropping and grabbing the base of her fan, preparing to send yet another Kamaitachi towards the man- she suddenly found herself wrapped in peach/pink cords.

"If you say so." Said Chouji, grinning. Flexing his arms, he snapped the one holding her back towards him with the speed of a stretched rubber band. The other arm grew in size and came rocketing towards her face as she flew ever closer…

His knuckles stung horribly as they cracked against the metal base of the fan. Temari twisted her arm in a way she'd definitely feel in the morning, sweeping the cumbersome thing back to bludgeon him in the temple. Ducking under it, he realized too late he'd left himself with his back to her and one arm still free. It was only due to luck that he managed to shove her away with his still stretched arm before she could prick him with a kunai and end the session.

Releasing her, the two squared off again. Panting, they locked eyes, both smiling. Temari was too close to use her fan, Chouji wouldn't have enough time to increase his body size. It was down to close combat.

A short exchange later, Chouji had won. It was a close thing, and between them this would make 3 for him and 2 for her. They were closely matched in skill and intuition, and Temaris willingness to take risks and her natural impulsiveness were a good match to Chouji's patient wait-and-see-ism.

"You take after your friend, I guess." She said, wiping her brow and laughing. Chouji grinned. "Yeah, well, you spend that much time around a genius and you pick up a few things. As a friend, Shikamaru in particular forces you to learn something."

"And that is?" Temari sounded amused, as though she knew what was coming.

"Patience." Temari laughed. Chouji had to grin. He liked Temari's laugh. It wasn't a full bodied chuckle, or a cutesy little giggle. It was loud and short and expressive, a brief bark that told everyone exactly what she thought. Asuma would say she was a pistol. Chouji had never really known what that meant, although Shikamaru would always nod morosely.

She socked him lightly on the arrm. "Come on. We keep sitting like this and we'll cramp up." The two rose and started stretching.

"So do you ever see him?" Chouji asked, unable to keep the curiosity out of his voice.

"Nara? Yeah, sometimes. He comes here for missions and I go there for diplomatic purposes every now and again." Temari was hiding something. Chouji narrowed his eyes slyly.

"Are you lovers?"

"What?! No! No, we just have dinner when we're in town. We're just friends, that's all! Nothing like that!" Temari broke her routine to wave her hands emphatically.

Chouji grinned. "Well, from him, that's quite a bit of interest, really."

Temari blushed. "You think?"

"Yeah. I've only ever seen him go out to eat with five people. Two were his parents, one was me, and the other two were Ino and Asuma sensei. He doesn't like to spend money he doesn't have to."

"Really? He always treats me." She said, and if Chouji didn't know better he'd say she was being girly.

He smiled. "Man. Everyone I know is so transparent." Temari looked up at him questioningly.

He finished stretching. "Well, Naruto and Hinata broke up long before they actually said anything. Most of all, your brother, for all his political training, is enraptured by Hinata and doesn't know what to do about it. You're obviously crazy about Shika. And, from what you're saying, I'd guess that you have a pretty good chance."

Temari finished, and crossed her arms, smirking. "And what about you?"

"Huh?" Chouji was nonplussed.

"What's your deal?" She asked, walking up and poking him in the chest. "I've got your number, Akimichi. You spend so much time watching everyone else that you don't know what _you_ want, am I right?"

Blond hair. Blue eyes. The smell of flowers.

"Oh, no." Said Chouji, smiling, off in la la land somewhere. "I know exactly what I want, trust me."

She cocked her head, curious. "What?"

He shook his head, dislodging his thoughts quickly. "Never mind. To tell you the truth, I'm just glad to see that Shika has someone to take care of him. When I left, I was certain he'd turn into sedentary mush."

She laughed as they started walking back to town. "He's about as close as I'll let him get, but then that's not very close."

Chouji smiled ruefully. Temari snuck a look at him. "You miss him."

"He's my best friend. We always kinda complimented each other. Now that I don't have him around, I'm the one who has to do all the thinking. I don't really like doing the thinking. It hurts mah brain meats." Temari snorted.

Chouji cracked his neck. "And, yeah, I have to admit, we understood each other really well. Hinata and Naruto won't eat chips with me. Naruto's too energetic to stay in one place, and Hinata doesn't like salt."

Temari smiled at him. "Hey, I like salt."

Chouji grinned back. "Well, I like company."

Shikamaru sneezed.

He wiped his nose and sighed an epithet, as though it really wasn't worth it to spare the breath.

The walk to Suna (he refused to waste chakra on speed for something so trivial and routine as a simple village to village correspondence) was one he knew very well, but it was also one he never failed to find annoying. It started in the humidity of Konoha, where mosquitoes and other bloodsucking little creepy crawlies followed you for miles once you started sweating. It ended in a desert, which didn't have mosquitoes but did have scorpions.

Shikamaru was never hard pressed to find something he didn't like about something, but practice made perfect.

He sighed again. Of course, at the end of this walk was Temari, the closest thing he had to a real friend these days. Not that Asuma and Ino weren't teammates and confidantes, but they were both very busy with their own stuff, and it wasn't like Shika had much in common with either of them. Not that he had anything in common with Temari either, but they were so very different they almost approached it from the other side.

Shikamaru missed Chouji.

He'd never admit it, but he liked to talk every now and again. Shikamaru was a philosopher more than a strategist at heart, and Chouji was an attentive listener. Really the only one in Konoha. Everyone else was either too self absorbed or too loud and soapbox-y to appreciate the finer points of moral discussion. Chouji was smart enough to understand while humble enough to let Shikamaru finish.

_If I ever see him again_, thought the young man, _I'm gonna take away every chip he has._

Hinata fell bodily onto her bed.

She'd battled some of the strongest ninja in the world, and had more wins than losses against them. If not, she'd be dead.

She trained to exhaustion every day with two people of equal strength. She never made any excuses for her mistakes, and worked hard to keep herself at peak condition.

She was from a household where awareness, grace, and muscle control were law, not goals.

She was used to all kinds of exercise and all kinds of strenuous activity, but she'd never found anything so mind numbingly exhausting as filing.

How was it that sitting in one place for hours at a time could actually make you tired? It didn't follow. It just didn't make sense.

If Gaara had really set out to break her spirit, he was doing a good job. This marked the end of day two of the torture, and he'd run her ragged. Her attempts to get Naruto to intervene were met with waggled eyebrows and knowing nose taps. Hinata wasn't sure what they meant, but she didn't like it. She was certain by the end of the day that Gaara was just making up things for her to do, but she wasn't really surprised. He was so efficient and so economic in his actions that she was willing to bet he'd filed everything himself before now. Which meant everything that needed to be done… was already done.

She rolled over, but couldn't get comfortable. Her mind was exhausted but her body was used to a much higher level of energy output and wanted to move. She thrashed back and forth in childish irritation for a moment, and then got up and stalked outside.

She stretched, and some of her joints cracked loudly in the dusk light of the hallway. Sighing, she went to the only place where she'd be able to tucker herself out enough to get to sleep.

Donning a loose fitting Gi, she entered the dojo and began some Juuken kata. Sighing softly, she let herself get lost in the ebb and flow of her own body. Everything else in life was complicated or scary, but things made sense in the dojo.

Time became fluid, malleable, and with no clock to go by she didn't know how long it was before she felt another presence. Finishing and coming to a ready stance, she took a deep breath, exhaled through the mouth, and untensed. Only then did she look.

"Gaara." She sighed, helpless against whatever demeaning thing he'd ask her to do next. He stood in the hallway at the entrance to the palace dojo, arms folded.

He nodded. He was far simpler dressed now that the day was done. For some reason Hinata had him pegged as a sharper dresser, but he wore a white t-shirt and jeans.

Gaara snarled inwardly. He'd have to run into her. He was going to perform his evening ablutions before meditating and going to bed. Instead, he had to find her, and see her like… well, like THIS. Sweaty and with her hair tied back. Shit.

Suddenly, Hinata was struck by inspiration.

"Would you care to join me?" She invited, softly, all smiles.

He balked. "What?"

"I would appreciate someone to practice with." She said.

He sneered. "You wish to finish our earlier challenge?"

"No. But Naruto and Chouji are busy, and some sparring would help me sleep later."

"Sparring?" Gaara suddenly realized he was in trouble. He was about as far from a taijutsu user as anyone ever got. He had barely mastered the most basic forms.

"Yes. That means no sand." Hinata's face was as kind and pliant as ever, but her eyes were malicious. "Of course, if you don't think you can help, I appreciate your honesty."

Gaara seethed. This morning she was scared, frightened, _cowed_. He'd been so close. If he left now, he'd suffer a drawback, but not nearly as much of one as he would if he crossed this threshold.

So why did he step in?

_The lioness._ Whispered the traitorous voice in the back of his head.

_I entered her den, and now she'll devour me._ He moaned.

They squared up. Hinata was all tense grace and tight, infallible calm, where Gaara, though he tried to hide it, was sloppy, with twanging nerves and fast, uneven breaths. Though he wasn't sure if that was the result of nervousness or the way her flush flooded her neck like that.

Hinata waited, drawing the moment out. Savoring it. She knew she was turning once again into a bully, which she'd been trying to resist all this time, but he'd belittled her all day and she was too mentally exhausted to examine her motives. The power was fulfilling. It felt GOOD.

Gaara HATED this. He hated being the inferior one, hated not being in control, hated the way she looked and what it did to him. But, more than anything else, he hated that he couldn't leave.

It was her eyes. This morning, they were like the eyes of his uncle. Now, they were like the eyes of his reflection.

Those eyes were coming at him very fast.

Gaara was on the ground. The blade of one of her palms was against his throat and the other was back, poised to strike.

Hinata smiled genially. Gaara wanted to sandblast that smile off her face.

"Perhaps this was a bad idea." She said. She offered a hand to help him up, but he refused it.

"No. Again." He said. _I'm a glutton for punishment._ He groaned to himself.

Once again, they prepared. Once again, she had him on the ground.

Hinata crowed inside. She was drunk on power, on superiority. On the RUSH of humiliating the most powerful and famous man in the country. The feeling made her heart pound, her blood heat. Her breath was fast and heavy and her lips were parted with the heaving effort.

Gaara bared his teeth. Pushing her away and standing, he adopted the same stance again. To a man who had only been truly beaten once in his whole life, this was alien. It was infuriating.

His rage made him all the more sloppy, and Hinata effortlessly struck again. Not willing to settle for simple defeat this time, she used his momentum to slip him over her ankle and send him pirouetting on one foot into a wall.

Gaara rose, almost frothing at the mouth. He couldn't take this. His hands clenched and unclenched unconsciously, and outside, beyond their sight, the sand roiled and twisted like the surface of a stormy sea. His eyes flashed and, this time without waiting for a fair starting moment, he charged, losing all his carefully cultivated self control.

Hinata sidestepped him and tripped him, leaning over and making use of her greater height, catching him in the crook of her arm and smiling down at him. It was a parody of a dip in ballroom dancing. "I'm sorry, Gaara. Am I going too hard on you?"

Gaara lost it. Sand poured in from all corners of the room, ripping through the rice paper and seething around her. But that wasn't enough, and Gaara's arms reached out and grabbed the side of her face. Later, what would amaze Hinata was the fact that despite the veins in his eyes and the way his muscles stood out on his arms, the sand didn't crush or even squeeze her, and his hands, though tense as wire, didn't press or pinch. It was all very… gentle.

Gaara seethed, panting, his pupils mere pinpoints in his green eyes and his face twisted into a cruel reflection of a grin. Hinata did nothing. She could break out, he wasn't trying to contain her, but his reaction was frightening for different reasons than threat or harm.

They stood there for who knows how long. Hinata just looked at Gaara, waiting to see what he'd do, uncertain of what to do herself. Gaaras panting died down and his eyes refocused. His body relaxed, and after a few minutes, he looked away and dropped his arms as though burned. The sand around Hinata uncoiled and dropped lifeless to the ground.

There was silence. Uncomfortable isn't a word with enough subtext to truly describe it.

Hinata stepped forward first. Her adrenaline had drained out of her quickly and she was now exhausted, slumped, sore. "Gaara-"

"I'm-" he interrupted, harshly. "I'm sorry." He folded his arms and turned away. "That's… not supposed to happen anymore."

Hinata had one hand clenched to her chest, but she reached out with the other and put it on his shoulder. "Gaara, nothing hap-" He jerked his shoulder away. "It could have. You have no idea how close."

She hugged her arm back over herself. She recognized it as a self defense mechanism, like his folded arms and wide stance. But she couldn't stop.

The silence rang, and then Gaara started walking. "Wait!" Said Hinata, reaching for him and grabbing his elbow.

He froze at the contact. Touching him. Why did she have to touch him? He never let anybody touch him.

She walked over beside him. "I-it was partially my fault. I goaded you and made fun of you. I was mean, and you were right to strike back, even if it was a little bit much." She smiled, and her eyes were once again mouse eyes. Gaara frowned. She blanched, but forged on. "I-if you r-really want to get better, taijutsu is m-my specialty and… well, and, um, I could teach you a little… maybe?"

He ripped his arm from her grip. "… okay. Fine. Whatever. Fine." Anything to get away from that face.

She smiled and clapped her hands. "Wonderful! I'll see you here tomorrow night, same time?" he nodded and left, just barely mustering the dignity not to run. She scared him, he realized. She did so many things to him he didn't understand, but the only one he did, was that she scared him. And even then, he didn't fully understand why.

Hinata came out of the shower, toweling off and sighing. Now what? She'd pissed off Sabaku no Gaara, to the point that he'd almost had a remission, so to speak. If she'd had any common sense, she would have avoided the situation by not getting into it.

She lay down on the bed. Still, the expression on his face while he spun away from her… all that anger. All that helplessness. It was like seeing things from the other side.

When he'd had his hands on her head and the sand had held her, well…

She'd almost though he was going to kiss her.

She'd almost _wanted_ him to kiss her.

Which made no sense.

Those dilated pupils and that sneer weren't what she'd always thought of as love. They were a twisted anger, a rage that needed possession and control, not understanding and encouragement, which were what Hinata had always equated with a relationship. A kiss from those lips would have been a bite, and a hug from those arms would have been like being wrapped in thorns.

What was happening to her?

Hinata was surprised to find herself almost crying in her confusion. There weren't any sobs and not many tears. Her body couldn't even decide whether or not there was something wrong.

What was it about that man that made her want to hurt him so?

"Phew." Said Naruto, leaning back on his bed. Kankurou, Chouji and him had snuck a peek after they felt Gaara's chakra go berserk.

"I know we already knew this, but your brother is fucked up." Declared Chouji.

"Your little cheerleader isn't much better." Said Kankurou, holding up a finger.

"I've never seen her act like that." Said Naruto, shaking his head. "She's always been one of the kindest people I've ever known."

'Yeah, well, this may surprise you but Gaara has an iron will. For him to go batshit like that takes a lot of windup. Besides, you saw her. She was pushing him to it."

"Is Hinata in any danger?" Asked Chouji, seriously.

Kankurou smiled. "No. He may come close, but without Shukaku in him there's nothing that he has to fight for control with anymore except his own urges. So long as she doesn't fight back when he wraps her, she'll be fine. That's what does it, see. Gaara told me once that the real thrill was when they fought. When they cared. Even then, I doubt he'd actually hurt her."

Naruto shuddered. "I love the guy, really I do, but that's just creepy."

"Welcome to Suna." Said Kankurou, spreading his arms wide.

Gaara didn't think meditating was going to help.

He was still feeling all the things he knew were becoming standard when dealing with the girl. Anger, rage, helplessness, and so on.

This time, there was something else.

For the first time in his life, Gaara had an erection.

_My god, even I didn't think I was this crazy_. He thought to himself.

Was he secretly some kind of sado-masochist? He liked to hurt people, sure, and he wasn't so proud as to deny that it was because of control issues, but up until now he didn't know he actually got off on it. Hell, he didn't even have that much knowledge of what getting off _meant_ until he found some of Kankurous porno vids, and even then the women had been too made up and the situations too unrealistic to do anything for him. Somehow he'd never found anything in his life that made him feel not just like a monster but like a _man_. And, of course, it had never bothered him.

If he'd had some experience under his belt, this whole business may have been easier. As it was, he was flying blind. He'd never been attracted to anyone before, he'd never had to deal with a crush, and he knew he'd never felt any of these things, which made him second guess his already questionable logic. Gaara had never been so lost in his life.

Gaara needed serious help. He needed to figure out what he was feeling and why, and he needed to do it without Hinata learning.

He'd just called her Hinata in his head. Great.

He had only one choice. He had to do the one thing he'd sworn he'd never do.

He had to ask his siblings for advice.

- The next chapter will be pretty short. It'll also be pretty god damn funny. -Skuzz


	5. Beachhead

"GYAHAHAHAHAHA!"

"I really don't think it's that funny."

"HAHAHAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHA!"

"When one considers a complete lack of libido to the sudden development of one, the latter seems favorable."

"HEHEEEEHEEHEEHEEHAHAHAHAHAHA!"

"Kankurou, I will kill you."

"-snrk- Sorry. –srngle-" He covered his mouth with his hand, his shoulders still shaking.

Temari, on the other hand, was behaving like it was Christmas. If they celebrated Christmas. This was indisputable proof that not only were they a family, they were a tightly woven family with unbreakable bonds of trust. Gaara was opening up to them about his first crush, and not just an ordinary crush, but a kinky, creepy, bondage S&M crush.

"I'm so happy!" She howled, wrapping her arms around Gaara and squeezing.

_They never learn._ Said the voice. _They just never, never learn._

A few gory minutes later, the humor thoroughly beaten out of the two older shinobi, Gaara sat at the foot of Temari's bed and listened to his older sister explain the birds and the bees. For a little while, before he told her to skip the simple tab A into slot B stuff and get to the parts that were complicated.

"Boy, Hinata's going to love you on your first night." Drawled Kankurou, fiddling with one of Karasu's arms.

"What's that supposed to mean, and why will there even be a first night." It was supposed to be a question, but Gaara was angry and nervous. The first was normal, the second not so much. And when Gaara was nervous, he spoke in declaratives.

"Gaara, it's not just a case of take the clothes off and stick it in." Said Kankurou, making obscene gestures. "There's foreplay, there's romancing, there's buildup, there's-"

"There's a guy wearing a cat eared hood and purple makeup who plays with dolls and has more porn than the back room of a video rental store trying to tell me how to make love to a woman sitting right over there." Said the redhead pointing idly with one finger. "Sorry, Kankurou, but when the time comes I'll figure that out on my own. I'm much more interested in two things. One, how do I stop feeling this way. Two, how do I stop _feeling_ this way. Do you understand."

There was a brief pause. Then everyone spoke up at once. "Okay, okay." Said Kankurou, waving his arms in a mollifying fashion and gaining the floor. "I think we're all getting a little hostile here, since we're all obviously pretty nervous. We've never talked about this with each other before and we need to come together and figure this out."

"Kankurou!" breathed Temari, impressed.

"Now, we need to come back to earth, and focus on the issues at hand."

Gaara nodded.

"Firstly, and foremost, they're _puppets_, you pompous little emo midget. _Secondly_, this is _Kabuki paint_. Thirdly, don't think I don't know you've snuck a look at my stash, little man. Fourth"- CRASH- "…that really hurt."

Turning away from him, Gaara focused on Temari. "Temari, you're a woman."

"Oh, you noticed." She said.

"Yes, very clever. Can you clue me in to just what Hinata is feeling about this whole situation."

Temari gave it some thought. "Well, if it were me, I'd fucking hate you."

For some reason, Gaara found his face sinking. "Hate me."

"Yeah, pretty much. You're being a real asshole, and you did nearly kill her."

Gaara sighed and rubbed a hand through his hair. "Why does that make me feel so bad."

"Well," Said Kankurou, climbing out of the floor, "It could be that you've actually developed what we like to call a _crush_. It's twisted and creepy, but a crush it is. And people generally prefer it when their crushes like them, if not crush right back."

Gaara was nonplussed. "I'm confused."

"We got off track." Said Temari, glaring at Kankurou as he dusted himself off. "Let's start over. You like her, and feel physically attracted to her. Emotionally, how does she make you feel."

"She scares the living daylights out of me and makes me feel helpless and weak. Every minute I'm with her I want to run and I can't because if I'm not around her I can't stop thinking about her. The whole business makes me want to kill her so I can get on with my life."

"Ah, young love." Said Kankurou, clasping his hands together at his collar and staring at the ceiling.

Ignoring him, Temari continued. "I'd say that's a basic indication that your interest in her isn't only physical. I have no idea what it is, but you do like her. Seeing as she keeps coming back and she's not me, she probably at least doesn't hate you. But then, she could just keep coming back because she likes rubbing your face in it like she did last night."

"I would." Whispered the puppet master as he sat back down. Temari smacked him to shut him up.

"We still haven't covered how to make it go away." Said Gaara.

Temari sighed. "It's not that simple, Gaara. Stuff like this doesn't just go away. It takes time. And separation. Since the two of you now live in the same place, I don't think you'll get either until you let them leave."

"I can't let them leave. I don't know what they're doing yet."

"Well, then getting over her will be difficult. You seem to have reacted to this violently, given that you want to break her spirit. Sounds like you want to make her into something other than what you see in her, to stop liking her."

"And you don't think that'll work." He said.

"No, but if it makes you feel better, torture her all you like. No skin off my back." Said Temari, shrugging. "But you might be better served just going with it and taking her out to dinner or something."

"I'd agree with that. Seriously, Gaara, she's a hot little tamale. Why do you want to stop liking her? You should learn to enjoy these feelings." Said Kankurou, grinning lecherously.

Temari frowned at him. "Don't tease him." At the mention of teasing, Gaara's eyes narrowed and the sand in the room shifted.

He waved his hands rapidly. "I'm not teasing, I'm not teasing! But a crush is normal. Trying to kill it off isn't. Gaara'll need to deal with this sooner or later, and it's probably better that it happen now before he hits middle age!"

Gaara sighed, and the sand died down. He rubbed his temples. "I don't understand how to get any work done when my body won't stop forcing me to think about her."

Kankurou looked at him for a moment, his face pensive. Then he clapped Temari on the shoulder. "You'd better get going. Time for some guy talk." He said.

Gaara walked out of his bathroom, dropping the magazine on the floor.

Wow.

Seriously, WOW.

For the first time in his life, Gaara felt like he had to thank Kankurou for something. A whole new world of experience had opened up to him, all thanks to his makeup wearing brother and the porno industry.

No, it wasn't makeup, decided Gaara.

It was _Kabuki paint_, and he'd fight anyone who said otherwise.


	6. Ambush!

Chap 6

Hey, folks. Skuzz here.

So when I started writing this oh so long ago (sorry), there was a sort of plan. And then I started not liking the plan. And then I hated the plan. And now the plan is completely different.

This means that eventually this story will probably be revised completely. Sooner or later I'm going to go back and heavily re-edit if not rewrite the first few chapters- I want to take attention off of the big conspiracy and focus on Gaara and Hinatas spats. For now I'll go ahead as best I can, but if you're wondering why nothing else is happening, that might be why.

Or it might be that whole, you know, personal project thing. Who knows.

"KANKUROU!"

The scream echoed throughout the palace.

"Better hurry." Temari said, smirking at the panicking form of her puppet mastering brother as he booked it out the back way.

"Better believe it!" He yelled over his shoulder. Kankurou pounded down the steps and disappeared into the village, determined not to be found until Gaara calmed down.

Boy, when things go wrong.

Gaara sat alone on the floor of his office, clutching his head and groaning. "God dammit, god dammit, god dammit…" he rocked back and forth like a metronome, steadily, in time with the moaning.

The floodgates had been let open.

The dam had burst.

And Gaara was coming to realize that he had a very powerful libido.

Every minute around Hinata was torture. Whether she was mewling and scared or roaring and furious, suddenly Gaara's faculties all ran out the window. Even when she wasn't around he thought about her.

Kankurou had ruined him! He wasn't going to be any good for ANYTHING anymore!

There was a knock on the door. "Gaara?" It was Naruto.

Gaara snarled at the door. Even to him it didn't sound human.

"Wow. That was, uh, that was a little scary. I'm coming in, okay?" The door edged open and Naruto walked in. He sat down next to the Kazegake, who was still rocking back and forth on his hips and muttering to himself.

"You know, not that it's any of my business, but a huge amount of diplomacy has stopped because you decided to throw a temper tantrum." Naruto remarked offhandedly.

Gaara growled through his teeth. "It's not a temper tantrum."

"Then what is it?"

"I'm trying not to rape your ex girlfriend."

Naruto turned and sized him up. "I'm going to give you a chance to rephrase that into something that won't force me to beat the crap out of you."

"Don't get cocky because you won one time. And I mean exactly what I said. I am trying, very hard, not to lose control of my sand and have it bring her to me right this second."

"So what, you officially like her now?"

"I don't know what I like. I've spent my whole life without being remotely physically attracted to anything. Then you people show up, I start fighting with her, and suddenly my sex drive is through the roof. And since my sand acts based on my subconscious now that Shukaku is gone, anything but complete mental control is going to result in her being pinned down on the floor." By the end of his words Gaara was moving his jaw again, but he was still rocking back and forth.

Naruto lay back and stared at the ceiling. "So you're just going to sit in here forever?"

"No. This will pass soon, I believe. I'm fine so long as she doesn't provoke me."

"And what did she do?"

"She stood on tiptoe to take a book off a shelf."

Naruto laughed. "You probably ought to just let us leave. You'll never have to see her again."

Gara uncurled, though his eyes were still focused and distant. "You don't seem concerned."

"Meh, we seriously don't have anywhere to be right now. If we do, things might get dicey."

Gaara lay on his back next to the larger man. "Since Kankurou is no help, I'll ask you. What do guys do to alleviate this kind of thing?"

"Alleviate what? A crush? Dude, just ask her out already."

Gaara sat up. "OF COURSE. Why didn't I think of that?"

Naruto shot him a surprised look. "Seriously? It never occurred to you?"

Gaara turned to him, almost wide eyed, except wide eyed Gaara looked creepy rather than cute. "No! I've never even flirted with anyone before! It's not something that ever occurred to me as possible."

"I'm impressed that you know what flirting even is, to tell you the truth."

Gaara glared at him again. "I'm very intelligent and highly observant. I run a country, as you are well aware."

"And I'm sure things get all mad freaky up in here most weekends." Naruto shot back. But Gaara wasn't listening. He seemed to be caught in the intricacies of his newfound plan. "She'll say no if I do this wrong. I need to catch her unawares, in a public place. Nobody turns down the Kazegake for anything. If I can arrange a brief public appearance together… and she has to be _angry_, it's no good if she's the damn mouse-"

"What the hell? Are you trying to get her to marry you or something?"

Gaara stared at him as though he was the stupidest person in the world. "Uzumaki, if you were her, would you say yes?"

Naruto gave that a moments thought. "Good god, no."

"Exactly. If this endeavor is to be successful, I will need to engineer circumstances in which she is completely unable to say no…" He went off muttering again. Naruto excused himself, but before exiting completely Gaara spoke up again. "Uzumaki." The blonde haired man turned. "If you speak to anyone about anything we said in this room, Tsunade's got mail."

Naruto laughed and closed the door.

The rest of the day passed as normal, for the most part. Gaara returned to work, and ordered everyone to remember to forget what happened. When Kankurou came back, Gaara beat him up again. The only big difference was that Hinata wasn't around- Gaara had someone find some busywork for her and left her alone to do it.

So why was Hinata so… so what? She didn't even know what she was.

She'd finished the busywork, and was doing what she always did when she wasn't working- training. But she couldn't seem to work up any interest in it. She sighed and shook out her hair idly.

She missed being berated by Gaara, she realized.

Eeeew.

She went to the locker room. Maybe it was because she was used to it? Some kind of psychological thing, like how women who dated abusive men always went back to abusive men? Or maybe it was because of the guilty joy she'd felt when she'd mocked him in their sparring session? It felt like a punishment?

Or maybe it was because it made her angry, and Hinata was coming to realize more and more that she liked Gaara's kind of angry...

"Hyuuga!" She jumped. The voice had come from inside the dojo- she cinched her gi back up and leaned out the door. "Yes?"

Gaara stood outside, wearing a black- surprise surprise, little emo goth boy liked black- a black gi. His arms were folded. "I would like to try this again. For real, this time."

Hinata stepped out of the door. She gripped her hands together at her waist and closed in on herself. Gaara spared a moment to think about how much he hated the mousy Hinata, and another to think about how- yes, how much he enjoyed Hinata the Lioness.

"Um, you mean sparring? When you didn't come back I thought we-"

"You thought wrong. I'm quite confident this time."

Hinata smiled politely. "I'm sure that you're very good, Gaara, but-"

"In fact, I'd go so far as to say that you don't stand a chance." Gaara smirked at her, and was pleased to see that he was right- she was getting riled.

Hinata stood a little straighter. "Well, Gaara, I hope you understand that you shouldn't get your hopes up-"

"In that case, what say we make a bet?"

"A bet." Her spine stiffened. Gaara spared a moment in his mental praise of himself to feel angry. She thought he was so pathetic a bet was insulting?

"Sure. It seems only fair, after all. I am asking your time. What say we make it an even wager? I'll bet you your time tomorrow night against my time tomorrow afternoon."

She seemed to be considering it. To her, of course, it would be the principle of the thing. But to Gaara and the political columnist waiting out of sight behind the next wall, it was all about the yes. If he could just goad her a little further…

"Of course, you're getting the better deal. My time is much more valuable. But if you think you'll lose, there's no point in forcing-"

"ALRIGHT! You've got yourself a match. Get in the dojo." Her eyes were steel magnolias.

Gaara stepped in, smirking as he saw the reporter scurry away down the hall. He'd wait in his room for Gaara to come and deliver news of his loss, and then (according to the coffers of the office of the Kazegake- this was no democracy, he could use the money how he liked) this little piece of information would be tomorrow's headlines. Using Hinatas alias, of course.

Hinata didn't know it, but this time he'd already won.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hinata practically skipped out of her room to breakfast. She'd thrashed Gaara so hard last night he probably had to sleep standing up.

If she was honest with herself, Hinata would admit that she was actually enjoying being a bully. But she was far too happy to let herself examine why- especially when she had a sneaking feeling it would leave her feeling guilty. For once, she wanted to enjoy a good feeling before second guessing herself over and over again.

Since Gaara's whole afternoon was hers to spend, she planned to use it having him perform pointless errands. Getting her a cookie from across town or finding her some obscure collectors item, along those lines. Something that would rub in just how much of his time was being wasted.

When she entered the dining hall, she slid on her stockings to her seat near the end of the table. Gaara was absent, as he often was- he wasn't a morning person.

And, Hinata reminded herself with glee, he was bruised in places doctors hadn't even invented yet.

It was her, her compatriots, and Temari and Kankurou around the breakfast table.

And she realized that they were all staring at her with some mixture of awe, amusement, and pity. And in the case of Naruto and Chouji, a little fear.

"What?" She asked in the middle of pouring milk for herself.

"YOU BASTARD!" She screeched storming into Gaara's bedroom, all propriety, shyness, and sense of surrounding gone- evaporated under the torch of her newfound fiery temper. He winced slighty- he had a pretty serious headache- and smirked when he saw that she was holding a newspaper.

He waved out his guards and notaries. "This won't take long." He said.

When Hinata finished the long walk, she noticed through the red haze that he was strapped with icepacks and bandages, and had a black- blacker- eye. This went some way towards her vindication, but not enough. "Explain this, or what I did to you last night will be a… a… a very not big deal, because what I'm about to do to you will hurt like a BIG big deal."

"I'm pleased to see that you're so much more talkative. But you might want to work on your vocabulary. And syntax." This made all of last night worth it. Gaara had to stop himself from giggling like a little boy as she raged at him. This was better than murder, seeing her this helplessly angry. Gaara wished emphatically to himself that helplessness turned him on, rather than whatever it was that happened when she actually defeated him. He was not actually opposed to raping her if it made him feel better.

Belatedly, he realized she'd stopped. He focused his eyes. "I'm sorry, I wasn't listening." He said, steepling his fingers and smirking.

She stared down at him unbelieving, that last statement finally pushing her past her newfound loquaciousness into speechless, impossible rage. She didn't think she could get any more angry than she was. She'd lose herself if she did.

"Come on, Hyuuga. Use your words." Said the monster.

Hinata snapped.

The room filled with the sound of breaking wood.

When Gaara landed, an eternity later, he did so still smiling to himself. He'd done it. And the pain… the pain he was learning to deal with. Now to put on a show.

Hinata stared as Gaara stumbled, with an uncharacteristic cackle, to his feet. "W-what's so funny?" She asked, fist still steaming. He had a hand to his face where she'd punched him, and his eyes were wild as he snickered. Hinata couldn't help but warily notice that the sand gourd was trembling.

He pointed at her, snorting blood out through his nose as he giggled. "You are. You think you can punch me out of this? Read the headlines, Hyuuga. 'Mystery Girl Bets Date on Sparring Session with Kazegake.' You'll draw more attention to yourself if you deny it than if you just do it!"

Her hands shivered with rage. "Do you have _any idea_ how much you've jeopardized just to play a prank on me?!" She roared.

"None at all!" He cried, gripping his side and twisting his spine back, howling like a hyena, his pupils walleyed and unfocused with sadistic joy. "B-but nothing is even jeopardized, heehee! You… your name isn't even used! And the date isn't even going to happen in this village! But if you say NO- well, the girl who… hehe… who says no to the KAZEGAKE… HAHAHAH!" He clutched his ribs and bent forward, covered in his own blood, looking like a crazed murdering psychopath fresh from a kill (all but the last of which was true.)

Hinata fell to her knees, crushed by her impotent rage, sobbing in fury. Gaara had won. He'd won! This was her final humiliation- even when she won, she lost…

Gaara pointed at her with one long, flexed finger, and declared dramatically through his wicked laugh, "NOW YOU HAVE NO CHOICE BUT TO DATE ME!"

The room rang silent.

Gaara put a hand over his mouth, but too late.

"You did all this… to ask me out?" Hinata whispered, her eyes suddenly wide and luminescent, staring into the middle distance through the floor.

"NO! NO! I did this to humiliate you! To get back at you for the dojo!" He cried, running forward and waving his hands to get her attention.

"You orchestrated this huge, Machiavellian scheme just to ask me out on a date?" She said, raising her head slightly, her eyes focusing. Her cheeks pinked.

"NO!" Gaara yelled, standing over her, trying to look menacing and failing because of his panicked face.

"Y-you must have been scared I'd say no, given the way you've been treating me…" She said shyly, all anger gone in the face of this new information, one hand to her chin, the other fidgeting with the carpet.

She blushed.

"DAMMIT! Stop! Get angry! GET ANGRY AGAIN! ARRGH!" Gaara turned, unspeakably furious with himself, tearing at his hair. His date with the lioness- GONE! Dashed like the hopes and dreams of orphans in prostitution rings.

"U-um… Gaara-kun…" Hinata said, looking up at him through her bangs. "Are you alright?" Well, there was no ultimate harm done except to him, and he did have it coming, she thought to herself. And this did explain a lot. The poor boy was subjugating his feelings with bullying, she read about what happened when… emotionally stunted people… didn't know how to… deal with their… object… of… affection…

Her eyes flattened wide and her mouth gaped.

_Oh shit._

She buried her face in her hands, blushing madly, her whole world upside down.

Gaara is my object of affection.

_GAARA is my object of AFFECTION._

I am so fucked up.

…It's like torturing ants with a magnifying glass. MWAHAHAHA! -Skuzz


End file.
